1250
Events Europe * April 30 - King Louis IX of France is released by his Egyptian captors, after paying a ransom of one million dinars and turning over the city of Damietta. * October 12 - A great storm shifts the mouth of the River Rother 12 miles (20 km) to the west; a battering series of strong storms significantly alter other coastal geography as well (see Romney Marsh). * December 13 - Frederick II, dies, beginning a 23-year-long interregnum known as the Great Interregnum. Frederick II is the last Holy Roman Emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty; after the interregnum, the empire passes to the Habsburgs. * The Lombard League dissolves upon the death of its member states' nemesis, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. * King Afonso III of Portugal captures the Algarve from the Moors, thus completing the expulsion of the Moors from Portugal. * Valdemar I of Sweden, first Swedish king of the Folkung house, becomes King of Sweden. * Albertus Magnus isolates the element arsenic. He also first uses the word oriole to describe a type of bird (most likely the golden oriole of Great Britain). * The University of Valladolid is founded in Spain. * The Rialto Bridge in Venice is converted from a pontoon bridge to a permanent, raised wooden structure. * Vincent of Beauvais completes his proto-encyclopedic work, The Greater Mirror. * The Parlement law courts of ancien régime France are established. * A plague breaks out in the city Naples (in present-day Italy), called the Naple's Plague. * Villard de Honnecourt draws the first known image of a sawmill. Asia * A kurultai is called by Batu Khan in Siberia as part of maneuverings to eventually elect Möngke Khan as khan of the Mongol empire in 1251. Africa * July 3 - Louis IX of France is captured by Baibars' Mamluk army at the Battle of Fariskur while he is in Egypt conducting the Seventh Crusade; he later has to ransom himself. * The Bahri dynasty of Mamluks seize power in Egypt. * The Welayta state is founded in present-day Ethiopia (see Rulers of Walayta) Births * Pietro d'Abano, Italian physician, philosopher and astrologer (died 1316) * Guido Cavalcanti, Italian poet (died 1300) * Dmitri of Pereslavl, Grand-duke of Vladimir-Suzdal (d. 1294) * Pierre Dubois, French publicist (approximate date; died c. 1312) * Moses de Leon, compiler of the Zohar (approximate date; died 1305) * Giovanni Pisano, Italian sculptor (approximate date; died 1314) * Asher ben Yehiel, Jewish Talmudist (approximate date; died 1328) Deaths * February 2 - King Eric XI of Sweden * February 8 - Robert I of Artois, French crusader (killed in battle) (born 1216) * February 8 - William II Longespee, English crusader * June 18 - Teresa of Portugal * August 9 - King Eric IV of Denmark (born 1216) * October 4 - Herman VI * December 13 - Frederick II (born 1194) * Leonardo of Pisa, Italian mathematician * Matej Ninoslav, Croatian ban Eras and population estimates The world population in 1250 is estimated at between 400 and 416 million individuals. Being a round number, the year 1250 is used to demarcate the beginning or ending of various eras or epochs. These include: * Judaism's acknowledged center of Jewish thought and learning: * End of the Geonim era in Babylonia (from 650) * Beginning of the Rishonim era (until 1550) * Medieval music - end of the Notre Dame school of polyphony 1250 In Popular Culture * Daniel Fortesque, a knight of the MediEvil video game, was born in this year, and died in 1286.